Chapter Text
The ER had gone quiet.
Not silent — it never was — but quieter in the way that signaled a shift in energy, like the building had taken a breath and was holding it. The kind of quiet that came with exhaustion, not peace. Phones still rang, monitors still chirped. Somewhere in the waiting area, someone coughed — dry, rhythmic, insistent. But it all felt distant. Muted.
Carter stood behind the admit desk, staring at the triage board without reading it. The marker ink was faded, smudged — someone had drawn a little cartoon skull in the corner. He didn’t react to it, didn’t smile or frown. Just let his eyes rest on it, unfocused.
His hands were in his coat pockets. He wasn’t cold. He just didn’t know what else to do with them.
Overhead, the PA buzzed with a call for ortho to Trauma 2. Chuny passed him on the way to curtain three, offered a tired smile — the kind that was mostly reflex.
He knew he should find Abby, especially since he was so affected. But he knew she’d probably be busy, and he didn’t want to disturb. Besides, he wasn’t really right head space to talk right now.
Which was exactly why he should talk to her.
But-
Emma’s voice still cracked clearly in his mind.
“It’s your fault”
He turned away from the desk.
And didn’t know where he was going.
The hallway outside the lounge was dim. One of the fluorescents buzzed overhead, a soft stutter of electricity in metal. He walked slowly, footsteps muffled by rubber soles and fatigue.
He hadn’t eaten.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat down.
His back ached — a slow, curling throb that had started around hour six and never left. It wasn’t sharp. It didn’t need to be. It just gnawed at the edge of his breath, pulsing every time he turned the wrong way or leaned on his left leg.
God, he wanted to take the edge off.
In the lounge, someone had left a half-empty coffee on the counter. The sleeve was soaked through. Sugar granules clung to the edge of the lid.
He didn’t touch it; the smell turned his stomach.
He sat down on the couch instead — the same battered thing that had been here since med school — and leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in his hands. Trying to breathe normally. One breath in, one breath out.
His mind didn’t go blank. It never did. It just spun — images looping, sharp and scattered. The boy’s face, pale and slack beneath fluorescent lights. Emma’s voice, trembling and furious. The way no one had stopped them from leaving the hospital.
You should’ve said more. You should’ve been more of a comfort to him.
He’s dead now.
His palms pressed against his eyes. He could still feel the blood — not physically, but in that phantom way grief clings to your skin. He tried to think of something else: a joke someone told at lunch, the name of a song playing in the lounge last night. Nothing came. Only the weight of it all.
“Trent? I’m Dr. Carter.
What happened to your hand?”
“I have this stupid art class.
We were carving some duck decoy. "
“The most exciting thing that we ever
did, I think, was macramé.”
“How many stitches do you think?”
“How many do you want?”
“Enough to get me out of art class.”
”Ten ought to do it.”
There was a part of him that wanted to cry. Another part that couldn’t remember how.
For a few minutes, he didn’t move.
He hadn’t thought it would hit this hard.
He’d expected to feel… frustrated, maybe. Shaken, but in that controlled way — the kind that you swallow down, carry home, and forget by morning. That’s how it usually worked for him. He used to lose someone, feel the sting, and keep moving.
That was before.
But this wasn’t sting. This was lead in his lungs. This was a silence so thick he couldn’t find his way out.
He kept trying to tell himself it wasn’t personal. That it wasn’t about him. But it was. It always was, eventually. Every loss carved something small and ugly into him — and tonight, he felt hollowed out.
Not this one.
He’d told himself — hours ago — that he’d done everything right. That he’d been calm. Clinical. That there was no “good” way to tell someone like that. That Trent’s grandmother had made the wrong choice long before Carter ever walked into the room. That he’d delivered the news the way he was trained to — directly, with care. That he couldn’t have predicted the fallout. That he wasn’t responsible for how anyone reacted once they left the hospital.
And still.
“It’s about your mother. How much
do you remember about her?”
“Nothing.”
The kid’s girlfriend had looked at him like he’d put him in the ground himself.
He kept hearing her voice in his head. The tone — sharp, cracked open, something halfway between accusation and grief.
“It’s your fault.”
He’d heard it before. Different voices. Different days. Same weight.
It settled on his chest like lead.
He shifted on the couch, rolled his shoulders, then winced. His spine pulled tight from tailbone to ribs, like his muscles had decided they were done playing along.
He’d been on his feet all day. Bent over gurneys. Holding retractors. Sitting in ways his back hated. But somehow the ache didn’t feel entirely physical.
There was something else in it, too.
Residual.
Familiar.
He pressed a hand to his lower back and breathed out slowly.
The buzz in his ears hadn’t gone away.
He thought, briefly, about going home. He could picture the steps — grab his coat, nod at the desk, swipe out. Drive the fifteen minutes in silence. Unlock the door, shower, maybe microwave something tasteless and stare at the wall for a while.
But it wouldn’t help. None of it would. He’d still be alone in that apartment, the fridge humming too loud, the windows shut tight against a city that kept going. He could sit in bed and pretend to read. He could try to sleep and stare at the ceiling instead. There was no peace waiting for him at home — no comfort, no closure, no one to say, “You did what you could.” Just the same echo of failure, louder without the hospital noise to drown it out.
He’d moved out from Gamma as soon as he could, not that he didn’t love her. But he felt so guilty after his stint in rehab, especially after what happened to Chase. The way she looked at him, with worry, was something he couldn’t stand. He wasn’t an addict addict, he’d just been stabbed, and in pain. He wasn’t nothing like Chase was, but somehow that was all Gamma saw when she looked at him. So he moved out as quick as he could, got his own apartment, his own space.
But the apartment was dark. Too quiet. No buffer. Nothing between him and the replay of what had just happened.
The moment the body was wheeled in. The second he recognized the sneakers. The dull sound of a monitor flat lining. The sheet he’d pulled up over the boy’s body, more gently than he meant to.
He closed his eyes.
No. He couldn’t go home yet.
His unconscious screamed at him to find Abby, or to just find an earlier AA meeting to go to.
Instead, he stood, moved to the back cabinet.
The lock had been broken for weeks. No one had gotten around to filing a request. No one really cared.
Go to Abby
He opened the cabinet. Inside: spare suture kits. A stethoscope missing an earpiece. A handful of orange-labeled pharmacy bottles marked for discard — half-used, unlogged, improperly returned. Most people didn’t touch them. Too much paperwork.
Carter stared at them without blinking.
This really wasn’t smart.
His hand moved before his mind caught up.
Not deliberate. Not careful.
Just instinct.
He picked one up. Read the label. Hydrocodone. 5/325. From a patient who checked out AMA three days ago. The nurse had probably meant to return it to pharmacy. They rarely did.
The bottle was warm from the overhead light.
He turned it in his hand, slowly.
The pain in his back pulsed again, higher now, behind the ribs.
No one would notice.
That was the thing. The ER moved too fast. No one checked every drawer. No one checked every signature. It would just… vanish. He knew exactly how easy it was to take.
He unscrewed the cap.
One pill slid into his palm.
Just one.
He stared at it, thumb brushing the edge. Just one, he repeated. Just to sleep. Just to take the edge off. Just to feel a little less like this.
His thoughts answered back, sharper now: You’ve done this before. You know where it goes. You’re already on your last chance here, don’t throw it all away.
But he was tired. His back ached. The buzzing in his skull was constant. He’d held it together all day, hadn’t he? Hadn’t snapped at anyone. Hadn’t cried. Hadn’t screamed.
He deserved relief.
You deserve pain, a darker voice replied. You let him walk out. You let him die.
He inhaled slowly, jaw tight.
No one would know.
He could take it. He could take it and sleep and wake up and forget this day ever happened.
His fingers closed around it like a secret.
But really, he should find Abby. If he was caught for this, all he’d worked for would be thrown away. What if he had one of those randomized drug tests that he’d agreed to?
But what were the chances of that really? And by the time he had one it would probably be out of his system already.
He walked through the ER like a ghost, the pill in his hand, the bottle back in his coat pocket.
He passed the curtain where it happened. The kid. The girlfriend. The grief.
All cleaned up now. Fresh linens. Blank chart.
It was like none of it had happened.
Except Carter still couldn’t breathe right.
He drifted toward the front desk again,
“Hey,” he said, trying to sound unconcerned as he picked up a chart. “Have you seen Abby?”
Randi looked up from the desk. She tapped the mouse to wake the screen.
“I saw her punch out,” he said.
Carter nodded and turned to leave, what did it matter anyways. He’d tried to find his sponsor. No one would fault him for that. Besides, he had an AA at 9, that might be enough.
“Hey, Carter.”
He turned again. Weaver was walking up, expression unreadable. “You got a minute?”
Maybe he hadn’t managed to hide his troubles as well as he should have. Right now, he pill still warm in his palm, Weaver was the last person he wanted to talk to.
“Actually, I’m just on my way out,” he said, heading toward the locker room with quick steps, sliding his hand into his pocket and dropping the pill safely there.
He slammed the door shut and quickly opened his locker. If Weaver had the slightest concern he was falling back, it was over for him. He quickly transferred both the pill and the bottle into his pant’s pocket, and not a second to late because as soon as he’d pulled his hand back, the door opened again.
“Carter, wait.” She caught up with him beside his locker. “John — you had a bad day.”
He didn’t answer. Just shrugged his coat of. He couldn’t let her see the shake in his hand. Not now.
“We all have bad days,” she said. “Look at me. You have to make tough choices, do what you think is right… and accept the outcome.”
“I shouldn’t have told him.” He pulled out his coat, shrugged it on. He slung his bag over one shoulder and turned around.
“You had to,” Weaver said.
He considered telling her. Just a sentence. Just a hint. But the moment passed. He looked at her for a second. Then gave a nod and turned toward the exit. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hey…” She paused, then softened her voice. “I’m off in a few minutes. You want to get dinner?”
A month ago, he might have said yes. A week ago, maybe. But right now? The thought of sitting at a table, pretending to eat, making conversation? It felt like another performance he couldn’t pull off. It was almost laughable, how many times hadn’t he encouraged patients to talk to people around him?
“I got an AA meeting at nine.” He said, hesitating. He really didn’t want to, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to worry her.
“You’ll make it.”
He paused by the door for a second, then he gave her a thin smile. Turned, and made his way towards the couch. She’d held out a hypothetical helping hand, and it would be stupid not to take it, he knew that.
When he walked with Weaver beside him 15 minutes later, the pill bottle burned in his pocket the whole way out.